People, places and things that make Hampton Roads famous: Presidents, celebrities and more

Hampton Roads is known around the world for its people — as being from here, as a come-here, or for just passing through — as well as places and things.

Its known for its Bacon (as in Nathaniel), its ham (as in Smithfield), its presidents (more than just George slept here), its submarines (the first and probably the most recent), its battlefields, its warriors, its singers and writers and sportsmen — oh, just read the list!

PEOPLEPrincess Pocahontas, Capt. John Smith and Chief Powhatan were all in Jamestown and environs in 1607.

Nathaniel Bacon led a revolt against Virginia's royal governor in 1676.

The pirate Blackbeard's head was put on a pole in Hampton after he was killed in 1718.

Thomas Jefferson attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg before founding the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

Patrick Henry, George Wythe and John Marshall all took part in political debate in Williamsburg, the Colonial capital of Virginia.

George Washington's victory at Yorktown cemented him as the man who would go on to become our first president.

William Henry Harrison and John Tyler— you know, "Tippecanoe and Tyler, too!"— became presidents. Both hailed from Charles City County.

Ben Butler, the Federal commander at Hampton's Fort Monroee early in the Civil War, declared that runaway slaves could be kept as "contraband of war" (and, presumably, then be freed). His decision led the Union on its way to emancipation.

Confederate President Jefferson Davis was jailed at Fort Monroe after the Civil War.

Edgar Allen Poe served a stint as soldier at Fort Monroe during his checkered life.

James Daniel Gardner, awarded the Medal of Honor for bravery during the Civil War, was born in Gloucester. He was a member of Co. I, 36th Infantry Regiment, United States Colored Troops.

Booker T. Washington studied and later taught at Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) before going on to lead Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University).

Robert R. Moton, who followed Booker T. Washington as head of Tuskegee, retired to a home on the banks of the York River in Gloucester, where his wife was reared.

Walter Reed, an Army physician from Gloucester, discovered that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes.

Ella Fitzgerald and Pearl Bailey, both world-renowned entertainers, were born in Newport News in 1918.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur is entombed in a Norfolk memorial and the man Marines hail as their most-decorated, Lt. Gen. Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, is buried in Middlesex.

William Styron, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, grew up in Newport News and used the area for some of his books' locales.

Movie star Ava Gardner lived in Newport News in the 1930s.

Satchel Paige pitched two innings for the Peninsula Grays at War Memorial Stadium in Hampton in 1966 at the age of 59.

Irene Morgan, a Gloucester African-American, was arrested in Saluda for refusing to move to the back of a bus for a white couple in 1944, 11 years before Rosa Parks' similar action. The Morgan case led to the first Supreme Court decision overturning a segregation law involving interstate transportation.

Glenn Close, theater and movie star, attended the College of William and Mary and starred in several productions there in the 1970s.

Curtis Strange, a two-time U.S. Open golf champion and captain of the 2001-02 U.S. Ryder Cup team, called Kingsmill in James City County home for years.

Marcel Desaulniers, co-founder and executive chef of The Trellis restaurant in Williamsburg, has award-winning cookbooks that have brought his creations, such as the tempting "Death by Chocolate," to international fame.

Hip-hop artist and producer Missy Elliott is from Portsmouth.

Hip-hop producers Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, better known as the Neptunes, in addition to Timbaland grew up in Virginia Beach.

Lawrence Taylor, Bruce Smith, Dwight Stephenson, Henry Jordan, Aaron Brooks and Ronald Curry are some of the many pro football greats from the area.

Michael Vick, who currently plays for the Philadelphia Eagles, grew up in Newport News. Vick, formerly the highest paid player in the NFL, served nearly two years in federal prison on charges related to dogfighting.

Mike Tomlin, a Denbigh High and William and Mary alum, became the youngest coach in NFL history to win a Super Bowl when he led the Pittsburgh Steelers to the championship in 2009 in just his second season as head coach.

Nancy Lieberman-Cline and Anne Donovan played their college ball at Old Dominion University. Both have been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Allen Iverson starred on the basketball court and the football field for Bethel High School in Hampton before joining the NBA. He's played for the Philadelphia 76ers, Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons and the Memphis Grizzlies. He returned to 76ers last year, but left the team indefinitely in February to tend to his sick daughter.

Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," is a College of William and Mary alum.

PLACES

Jamestown: Founded in 1607, Jamestown was America's first permanent English colony.

Williamsburg: Home of the College of William and Mary and the capital of Virginia from 1699 to 1780, Williamsburg was restored beginning in 1926. Notable visitors to Williamsburg include many U.S. presidents and heads-of- state.

Yorktown: The site of one of the most decisive battles of the American Revolution. On Oct. 19, 1781, Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the Americans and French after being defeated by Gen. George Washington.

Chesapeake Bay: The largest estuary in the United States, the bay stretches about 200 miles from Havre de Grace, Md., to Norfolk and includes two of the five major North Atlantic ports in the United States.

Hampton Roads: Site of the first battle between the

Virginia Beach: One of the most popular tourist attractions in the United States, Virginia Beach was where the first English colonists came ashore in the New World.

THINGSPeanuts grow by the hundreds of acres south of the James River. Suffolk is home of the Planters company, whose emblem is the monocled Mr. Peanut.

Have some ham. Little Smithfield is home of big Smithfield Foods, the world's largest pork processor and hog producer.

Lots of beer is brewed at Anheuser-Busch in James City County.

For sippers, there's Williamsburg Winery in James City County.

Tobacco turned 17th-century Jamestown into a financial success. Small towns like Urbanna and Yorktown were once the ports where casks of tobacco were rolled to waiting ships.

Oysters, crabs and fish, although the numbers are diminished, still play a role in our economy, culture and cuisine.

Gloucester holds a festival honoring daffodils every year because the perennials used to be a major cash crop on the Middle Peninsula.

Laser printers and copier machines come off the assembly line at the Canon Virginia plant in Newport News.

Peace Frogs, the clothes and gear bearing an appealing amphibian, come from a company headquartered in Gloucester County.

One of the Chesapeake Bay's most popular small racing sailboats, the Hampton One Design, was designed and first built here in 1935.

Warships have been launched since 1898 at the shipyard in Newport News, where they are now most notably the Navy's sole supplier of nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines.